Saturday, July 19, 2014

Tommy Ramone was a mensch

From the Tyler Evans interview with Tommy Ramone in 2012, here:

Mickey Leigh announced that Joey Ramone’s second posthumous album …Ya Know? is coming out at the end of May. I couldn’t help but notice that you’re not one of the producers on the record.

It’s just so heart wrenchingly sad that Joey’s not around. I didn’t think I was up to it. It was just too heart-breaking. It would have just been emotionally so hard for me, because working on a record, the way I work; I get very into it, very intense. I just found it overwhelming, ya know?

Did you get a chance to talk to all of the guys before they passed?

Oh yeah. I talked to them all the time, especially Johnny and Joey. Dee Dee I didn’t, Dee Dee was fine, ya know? What happened with Dee Dee was really freaky. Joey was sick and Johnny was sick, and I talked to them … sad times, very sad times. Those guys are with me all the time, which is why it would have been so hard to work on that record.

If you don’t mind me asking, what do you miss the most about them?

It’s like family, ya know? It’s an emotional thing, they’re always with me. They’re just so much a part of my life that it’s like missing a part of you, a big part of you. Just their personalities, it was so intense really, the relationships. In a sense, they’re always there. It just surrounds me all the time.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

What a rotten day: Tommy Ramone has died

The last of the original four.

"[The Ramones] gave everything they could in every show. They weren't the type to phone it in, if you see what I mean."

-- Tommy Ramone, 2007